Good morning.
This morning is going to be about business, and how to succeed in your personal business. We’re going to first look at and listen to some birds in nature, who will teach us. 🙂
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It’s Saturday morning and the sky is blue with a few fluffy, white clouds and I hear a bird twittering softly. A second bird just responded. A third bird said something in the background. And a fourth. Actually, the more I listen, the more I realize how many birds are out there talking. Singing. Exclaiming. Proclaiming. The more I tune my ears to what’s going on in the trees, the more I become aware of the life being lived. The population. The existence.
And as I tune my ears in to the birds, I become curious about what they look like. So I move to the window and see the birds with my eyes. It’s one thing to hear them, but it’s another to see them.
Upon the first glance, I don’t see any sign of a bird. I move closer to the window and sit down. I’m scanning from a second-story window and the sun is shining in my direction. The sunlight reflects on the glass pane and hinders my sight. Oh, but how I hear them. I know they’re there.
I open the window.
Wow. The sounds were pretty and intricate and lovely before; but how much more vibrant and glorious they are without a double-paned glass window between us.
Still no birds in sight. I become aware of my residual congestion from the head cold I’ve had the last three days. Plus, a lack of caffeination. This is a word I made up. You may use it 😉 More hindrances to my senses.
Aha! My first bird. A blue jay. I can tell by the whiteness in the tail.
Number two just flew by. Couldn’t tell what he or she was. A small/medium brown bird.
If only I could take the screen out too. I would be able to spot the birds so much more easily.
There must be eight or ten different bird sounds that I’m hearing.
A man coughs across the courtyard. A strange bird, for sure. 😛
A beautiful bird flies by just a few feet below my window carrying a twig in her beak. She descends to the ground to collect another one. She must be building something.
OKAY.
Let’s make this about being successful in business.
Step 1. Go to where the people are.Â
I want you to think of the birds we’ve been talking about as people. People in the world that exist; because we know that they do. They’re out there, singing, talking, shouting, flying by all sorts of places at all sorts of times. They’re building things and working.
It’s much easier to access these folks if you put yourself in proximity to them. What that meant for me and the birds was go to the window.
What that means for people and business is: go to the coffee shops, go to the events, go to the parties. Plan and host the parties. Make the phone calls. Send the messages. Use the social media platforms. Show up. If you don’t show up, your business won’t blow up. I guarantee. If you don’t move yourself to a place where you can better access people, you simply won’t be able to reach people.
Side note, I’m closing the window because my allergies are kicking in. It’s been nice, birdies. 😛
Step 2. Remove the obstacles.
When I moved to the window, I was closer to the birds, but I had several hindrances. One was the sunlight coming in through the pane. One was the screen. One was my own congestion and lack of coffee. Most of these obstacles are not impossible to remove.
It’s the same with business. What is hindering you from reaching people more effectively in your business? Most of the time it’s ourselves. “I don’t feel like sending reach-outs today. I don’t feel like posting about business today. I don’t feel like going to this or that event. I don’t feel like taking on rejection. I’m discouraged because my seeds aren’t coming to harvest.”
If any of these sound like you, you are SO in the right place!! It all comes down to removing the obstacles:
Common obstacles that we can remove:
*emotional attachment to the outcome of our reach-out
*expectations of whether or not someone will become a partner, referral or customer
*the me-focused worldview; business shouldn’t be about YOU, it should be about helping others solve a problem/reach a goal ***this one is SO important!!!!!!
*self-doubt and discouragement (I’ll touch on this more shortly)
Step 3. Study your audience.
When I moved closer to the window and camped out for a while, I became aware that there were way more than just one or two birds outside in the trees. There were so many different kinds of birds singing different kinds of songs and performing different tasks.
If I know who’s out there, I can identify their needs. But only if I know who’s out there. Take the time to study who’s out there. Start in your local vicinity, with those close to you. They could literally be right outside your window! Heck, I just got to thinking… I should talk to my neighbors about business! Lol
Everyone is singing a different song. Listen to the tune well so you know who you’re talking to. A cookie-cutter reach-out message is fake. People know when you’re copying and pasting a message to them and everybody else and their brother. When you actually take time to study who you’re reaching out to, you can cater to their actual needs.
Step 4. Know your worth.
If you don’t believe what you have to offer is worth going to the window, you won’t go. If you don’t believe you can enhance others’ lives with your products or services, you won’t take the steps to spread the word. You won’t take the time to study your audience. You won’t even be thinking about your audience at all. At least you shouldn’t be. You should be thinking “what the heck am I doing selling something that I don’t believe in?!”
So STOP. Think of why you’re in your business. Why are you doing it? Are you doing it because you believe that you can help people? That you can change and enhance lives? That you can provide betterment for other people?
Know your worthy. Know your business is worth talking about. It’s worth investing time into. It’s worth telling others about. It’s worth thinking about and pondering and planning for and strategizing.
Now take that knowledge and share it. Share it with the people in your circles. Innermost and outermost. Build a strong customer base and roll with them. Take care of them. Cater to them. LISTEN to them. Hear their needs and deliver them. Change their lives, change their outlook. Change their perspectives.
This is the power that we have in business. This is the power we have as entrepreneurs. We get to change lives.
But we have to be researchers. We have to be observers. We have to sit and wait and watch and listen and hear before we can just jump in.
I feel most loved and care about when someone sees me and knows what I need, and then lovingly communicates that because they care about me. Not when someone word vomits all over me not knowing the place that I come from.
Let’s be loving. Let’s be strategists. Let’s be listeners. Discerners. Go-getters. Passionate. Excited. Let’s be deliverers!!!!!
Ps. If you have balding or thinning hair, dandruff or scalp issues, or want to promote healthy hair growth, shiny, healthy hair etc. please email me at velyoung01@gmail.com!!!
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xxx
V
